


fine as a beeswing

by cherrytart



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Charlie (is trying his) Best, Fluff and Smut, Getting Together, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rutting, Sex in Hammocks, Trans Character, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:21:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytart/pseuds/cherrytart
Summary: George blinks, lashes damp, and snatches his other hand out from underneath him.“You want a hand, there?” Charlie asks, nudging him again, and gets his own hand under the blankets. Georgie makes a sighing noise, huffing round his fingers, as though Charlie’s made one of his bad jokes.
Relationships: Charles Best/George William Chambers
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	fine as a beeswing

**Author's Note:**

> for the sunday prompt "valentines day" (very, very loosely)
> 
> content warnings in the endnotes, if there's anything i may have missed please let me know and i will amend. 
> 
> title is from the song ["Beeswing"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROHzFywcb_0)

**February, 1847**

At change of watch, Charles Best hops sock footed to his hammock – Georgie puts it up for him, just the sort of thing he does – and rolls himself up and into it with a seaman’s long practice. Him and Chambers have the corner near sickbay to themselves, sacrificing the heat that comes from sleeping up nearer to the galley for dark and privacy, a bit of it at least.

The lump of blankets in Georgie’s hammock is motionless – he sleeps like the dead, and in the early days of Erebus’ voyage Charles and Davey Young would take it in turns to wake him for his watch with a shove to his narrow shoulder or a kick to the back of the knees. He says a quiet prayer for David, now, left behind in his lonely tomb on the shale.

If they’d never sent him to Terror, some of the older seamen grouse in whispers, he’d never have been left to get into such a poor state – _our_ surgeons would have noticed, they say, _our_ officers paid better attention. All Charles knows is that Georgie woke up shaking for five straight nights after David died, when they heard him crying out in sickbay, and Charles would have to hold his hand tight under the blankets to get him back to sleep.

Charles lets himself doze lightly as the sounds of the men going up recede, the sharp bray of Lieutenant Le Vesconte’s laugh at the forward hatch and the marines complaining about something or other. No point trying to sleep til they’re all above. Next to him, close enough that Charles could move over an inch and press their backs together, the light hitch of Georgie’s breath is a comforting rhythm.

So its not so strange, then, that he should notice when Chambers’ breathing changes. Those steady, sleep heavy sighs peter out to softer ones, and then his breaths begin to hitch, higher then deeper, and Georgie shifts a little, onto his front. A little fidget, and then a sharp sound again, bitten down like he’s trying – and he is, of course - to stifle his own noise.

Well, like as not nobody else in the fo'c'sle can hear him, but Charlie, close as he is and already far from sleep, can’t help but do so. Georgie’s still enough, no rocking creak of the hammock as you sometimes will hear when a man forgets himself, but he can’t seem to help those swallowed sounds.

Polite thing to do is to roll over and ignore it, of course, like you do for anyone else, and Charles is five and twenty nearly and knows the rules of the thing as well as anyone, the consideration you show your mate when he’s working one off. Only, well, Georgie’s taking an awful long time about it. The little noises are starting to sound pained, and there’s another sort of etiquette, isn’t there, where a mate can help another out, if he’s a need.

(He likes George, he knows, fair better than any mate he’s had on any voyage. It’s something, being looked up to as the ship’s boy does to Charlie, and its more that Georgie’s sweet with it, game for anything and soft as one of the rabbits Charles’ dad kept in a hutch out the back – and there, he’s twitching just like one now and all.)

Charlie’s never been the sort to pretend things to himself. He rolls to his other side, makes sure his back is blocking any view the rest of the men might have, and leans over just enough to nudge him. That light head comes up out of the pillow with a little jump – Georgie’s got his hand stuffed into his mouth, biting down – his grey eyes, already sweet as anything, Charlie’s always thought, blown wide and black. He blinks, lashes damp, and snatches his other hand out from underneath him.

“You want a hand, there?” Charlie asks, nudging him again, and gets his own hand under the blankets. Georgie makes a sighing noise, huffing round his fingers, as though Charlie’s made one of his bad jokes. It's hot between the blanket and Chambers’ body, and Georgie’s pretty face – he _is_ pretty, the prettiest thing Charlie reckons he’s ever seen, here or anywhere – watching him is enough to make his own cock twitch, just a bit.

“Charlie,” Georgie murmurs, even as he’s rolling back, letting Charles feel under his rucked up shirt, over the round of his hip, soft with puppy fat still, and lay a hand against his stomach. It feels a very tender thing, just then, to touch him and look at him besides, and Charlie strokes gently at his skin.

“S’alright,” he says, leaning on his other elbow, so Georgie won’t feel boxed in. “D’you want me to?”

Georgie huffs another breath, wiping his mouth. He’s lying very still, but Charlie can feel the muscles in his stomach twitching. He must be dreadful sore, waiting for it so long. “Charlie, I, we-” he starts, and then slams his hand back across his mouth when Charlie moves his hand down, encouraging, and makes to get a hand around his cock.

Or, well. He _would_ get a hand around it, if it were there. Instead, his fingers meet a warm cleft, a damp patch spreading through the fabric of George’s underthings, a yielding softness when he presses down broken only by the blunt line of Georgie’s pubic bone.

In the dark, Charlie can see Georgie’s pupils shrinking down to sharp points – scared, he looks so scared (his own mind still hasn’t caught onto the fact of it, of what's below his hand, because its _Georgie_ , and how didn’t he _know_?). All he wants to do, all of a sudden, is hold him. Georgie doesn’t say anything, just reaches down and takes Charlie’s wrist in both hands and hangs onto it, looking at him still. “Charlie,” he says, just soft.

“Here, now,” Charlie murmurs, because whatever he’s got between his thighs he’s still the same, isn’t he? Still a mate in need of a bit of help, and Charlie can do that well enough. “Let me, yeah? Hand back in your mouth – good lad.”

This seems to be the right thing to say, because Georgie makes a humming sound, and Charlie grins, unable to help it. Been a while since he’s done this, his tastes tend more the other way, but he’s no novice, and it gives him a keen kick of pride to feel Georgie stretch into his hand, chasing his touch.

“Christ, you’re a nice little thing,” Charlie tells him, setting a steady rub and stroke, pushing the fabric of Chambers’ smalls up between his legs. “You are, y’know that?”

Georgie looks like he might shake his head, but his wet lashes are fluttering against his cheek (never seen him shave, Charlie realises, but he’s only young, so its no wonder nobody notices) and he’s pushing down against Charlie’s fingers. He murmurs what sounds like a _please_ against his own hand.

“That’s right, you just grind on it. Yeah, like that,” Charlie whispers, the words hardly more than a breath of air, but Georgie hears him and does as he’s asked – God above, he’s a sight, and the feel of him, warm and wet through his small-clothes, is enough to have Charlie fit to burst in his own breeches. He rubs himself idly with his free hand, but his mind is all on Georgie, on the little circles he’s making with his hips, the hard nub of twitching skin at the head of him that Charlie knows exactly what to do with. 

“Can we, can you…” Georgie whispers – their heads are close together, his breath hot on Charlie’s neck. He knows what Georgie wants and sets to giving it to him, pushing the buttons on his smalls free and giving him a squeeze once they’re open, feels wiry hair and hot, slick-smooth skin against the calluses of his seaman’s palm.

“Tell me,” Charlie says, though he knows its a risk, more than a risk, but all he can hear is Georgie’s hard breathing and the men around them snoring, snorting, fast asleep, not caring one bit that Charlie Best has his hand all the way into Georgie’s underthings and feels about twenty feet tall. “Tell me what you want, Georgie. What you like.”

“Oh, fuck,” Georgie hisses, and puts his other hand down, folds it round Charlie’s, angling it the way he seems to need, which he’s not used to but he thinks just now could make him go off like a god-damned rocket, the knowing tilt of Georgie’s wrist pulling him where he wants. “Hands, your hands, Charlie, oh, oh I want…”

“In you? Tell me, mate, and I’ll try it.” He’d try anything, he thinks, as long as it made Georgie look like that, his blond hair darkened up with sweat, the graceful line of his neck against the pillow. He’d like to kiss him, he thinks. Like that better than a lot of things.

“Mmm,” Georgie hitches himself closer, trembling, his legs soft and plush where they’re spread for Charlie to stroke him, “yeah, yeah, please – will you? Inside?”

Course he fucking will. He plays his fingers round his entrance, making sure its there he wants it and not further back, and is rewarded with Georgie leaning forward and lipping at his neck, wriggling as close as he can. And oh, he’s tight as you like round two of Charlie’s fingers, the snatched back moan he almost makes just lovely.

“Gonna make me spend, Georgie, just from lookin’ at you,” Charlie murmurs, twisting his wrist so he can thumb at that spot at the top of Georgie’s cleft at the same time. “How’d you like that?”

“S’good,” Georgie says, into the front of his shirt, so he feels it more than hears it, the blankets a safe little cave for them to be together in, “you’re so good, Charlie, _there_ -” A press of that hand, small and still as callused as his own, against his wrist, to get him just where Georgie wants, and Charlie gets to watch, rapt, as Georgie spends himself, fluttering round Charlie’s fingers, a sweet gushing thing for him to keep.

He leans over, and between the work of his own hand and Georgie’s hip, brings himself off – pulls Georgie’s hand up and licks the wet from it to save himself from shouting. It’s almost as good as being inside a tight arse or cunt, but better somehow, because Georgie’s lying watching him, winded, hair stuck to his sweat slick forehead, his free hand rubbing shyly against Charlie’s chest.

There’s a part of him even now that wants to question Georgie, ask him what he thinks he’s doing on a ship full of men who might press any kind of thing on him were they to find out – though Charlie suspects, drawing unwillingly back from Georgie’s warm side, that he’s not much of a leg to stand on, given what he’s just done.

Instead, he waits til Georgie’s arranged both their blankets back neatly and catches his wrist, cradling that small hand between his own. “Here, now,” he says. “You know you could’ve told me? About...you know I wouldn’t tell anyone, yeah?”

“I know,” Georgie says, rolling to his side and looking up at Charlie, his eyes a little wet, still. “I just...I didn’t want you thinking I was...y’know…”

“A lass?” Charlie says, frowning, because he thought, surely -

“Keep your voice down!” Georgie hisses. “And m’not.”

“You’re not,” Charlie repeats – Georgie sounds so sure of himself its hard for him to say anything else.

“No,” Georgie says simply. “I mean – I know I’m not an ordinary man, like. But I’m a man still.”

It’s nothing Charlie’s ever heard before, nor even _thought_ of – but surely Georgie knows himself, clever and canny and bright as he is, all the questions he’s got about everything else.

“Alright, then.” Charlie nods, and when Georgie frowns a little, he stretches as close as his hammock will allow. “I’ve never met a lad like you, right enough. Never met anyone like you, Georgie Chambers.” It’s true, and he’s starting to suspect he never will again. Might as well hold onto him, now.

“Thanks, Charlie,” Georgie says. “You’re a pal, y’know?”

“Yeah?” Charlie says, poking Georgie in the side, the slight concave of his waist he’s noticed before but never much thought on. He wants to ask a hundred things, how he came to know this about himself, but its late enough as it is, and nice besides to lie here, like as it could be any other night, only Georgie’s looking at him so soft, like he painted the stars, and he can’t help smiling all over his face.

“You know what I mean,” Georgie says, all huffy. Charlie reaches out and pinches the side of his face, like he does anyway to annoy him, only it turns into cupping his damp, flushed cheek in his palm, and he can’t help himself, then.

“Can I kiss you, Georgie? Only I’d not half like to.” It’s a gamble, but Charlie’s a gambling man, always has been.

“Go on, then, yeah,” Georgie says, tipping his face close. Charlie leans down to meet him, wrapping his arm over Georgie’s smaller form, and counts himself lucky he’s things still left to learn, and time enough to learn them.

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: georgie is AFAB and identifies as male, charlie does not know this when initiating sex but rolls with it once he realises. charlie follows georgie's lead and his genitals are referred to with neutral terminology during sex. they're doing this in what amounts to a public space (the fo'c'sle), although in a corner and not in anyone's sight.
> 
> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/itgottheleg) and [tumblr](https://regularmongoose.tumblr.com).


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